Stay Informed

Get the latest updates:

Prison Policy Initiative newsletter (?)
And our other newsletters: Research Library updates (?) Prison gerrymandering campaign (?)

Email:
Name (optional):
State (optional):

Welcome!

The Prison Policy Initiative organized this website to be the starting point for anyone interested in learning more about the problem of prison gerrymandering.

The website's navigation menu is designed to give you an overview of prison gerrymandering: the problem and the solutions. Separately, the menu provides some starting places to take action in your community or at the national level.

The downside to producing so much information is that it can be difficult to find a particular piece of information that speaks to your specific need. This page provides an alternative introduction to the dozens of state-by-state and district-by-district reports, hundreds of articles and fact sheets, and thousands of communications with elected officials spread across both this topical website and our main organizational website.

What's your goal?

Learn the basics:

• Overview of how prison gerrymandering distorts democracy
• Federal, state, and local solutions to prison gerrymandering

Guidance for prison gerrymandering reform:

• States with active campaigns against prison gerrymandering are listed on our take action page. Each state has a frequently-updated list of resources about the problem and organizing in that state.
• A report on how states implemented their legislation in the 2020 redistricting cycle, with recommendations from lessons learned. By the NCSL (National Conference of State Legislatures).
• A guide to ending prison gerrymandering for state legislators, released jointly with SiX. Includes lessons from our previous advocacy, detailed policy recommendations, talking points, and more.
• Legislation page with active legislation, and past legislative efforts.
• Model legislation for states and counties.
• Resolutions page for non-binding organizational and legislative statements.
• 2021 year-end roundup of state reform. Also explains how the different ways states achieved prison gerrymandering reform leads to a different count of states that have "ended prison gerrymandering".

Find data on your state, county or municipality

• The data and reports from the Redistricting Data Hub, estimating the effect of prison gerrymandering in select states (Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin), and analyzing the adjustments to the 2020 redistricting data for 13 of the states that counted incarcerated people at home in the 2020 cycle.
• Check out our 50 state report (a state-by-state compilation of local and state prison gerrymandering issues - something on every state, but district-specific analysis tends to be from past years.)
• Find mentions of your state, county or municipality in our blog, in a fact sheet, or elsewhere on our sites:

Find detailed information on a specific issue:

• Implementation
• A report on how states implemented their legislation in the 2020 redistricting cycle, with recommendations from lessons learned. By the NCSL (National Conference of State Legislatures).
• Implementing Reform: How Maryland & New York Ended Prison Gerrymandering, by Erika L. Wood, released by Demos. A deep dive into the reallocation procedures in New York and Maryland in the 2010 redistricting cycle.
• Places
  • Where People in Prison Come From: The geography of mass incarceration (a series of reports mapping the home addresses of incarcerated people)
  • Counting Incarcerated People At Home: Why using last known address works (refuting misconceptions about the realities of modern mass incarceration permeate discussions about the usual residence of incarcerated people. Showing that people who are incarcerated on Census day actually live at home most of the time.)
• Demographics
  • Impact on demographic data
  • The Racial Geography of Mass Incarceration (Report comparing race and ethnicity of people held in prisons to residents of the county where the prison is located.)
  • Too Big to Ignore (report analyzing how the U.S. Census practice of tabulating incarcerated people as residents of the prison county distorts statistics for county population size, growth, race, ethnicity, age, gender and income) Don't miss the interactive tables, which are searchable by county.
• Funding
  • Background explanation of how funding formulas are unaffected by redistricting data
• Talking about voting rights and redistricting
  • An explanation of how prison gerrymandering reform differs from voter-only redistricting efforts

Use data and tools for demographers, redistricting professionals & advocates:

• Explore all of our data tools, annotated and organized by census decade.
• Locator (2020) (annotations and correctional facility counts by Census block, searchable by county)
• Map files (shapefiles and kml) (a national point shapefile with the group quarters — including correctional facilities — populations, and Google Earth files that allow you to view the information available in our Correctional Facility Locator through Google Earth)
• Democracy Toolkit (training on using our research tools and how to analyze the impact of prison gerrymandering on local governments)

Find material (by type) to help you get informed

• The FAQ
• Best of the blog
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Press releases
• Maps
• Reports
• Newsletter (search the archives to read past newsletters, and sign up to stay current on the issues)

Find material for redistribution as an introduction to the issue

• National Briefing Packet
• Ending prison gerrymandering national fact sheet
• Maryland and New York have taken the lead, a fact sheet on state action
• "Beginning of the end for 'prison-based gerrymandering'" (a Washington Post op-ed by Peter Wagner about the great precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling to uphold Maryland's law ending prison gerrymandering)
• "Breaking the Census: Redistricting in an Era of Mass Incarceration" (a William Mitchell Law Review article by Peter Wagner that provides a comprehensive national overview of the issue and outlines best practices)
• Missouri Municipal Review (a comprehensive look at prison gerrymandering issues for counties and municipalities)
• Locked Up and Counted Out: Bringing an End to Prison-based Gerrymandering, a law review article by John Drake that provides an overview of how prison gerrymandering skews the principle of "one person, one vote"
• Prison-based Gerrymandering: What to Watch For (a guide to spotting problems commonly caused by prison gerrymandering)

Litigation materials:

• Maryland litigation - Fletcher v. Lamone, a partisan power grab under the guise of an African-American voting rights lawsuit, which challenged Maryland's law ending prison gerrymandering in Maryland. This suit ended when the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a lower court's ruling to uphold Maryland's landmark civil rights law.
• New York litigation - Little v. LATFOR, in which plaintiffs unsuccessfully sought to overturn the New York law ending prison gerrymandering.

• Home
• The Problem
• The Solutions
• Take Action
• Data
• FAQ
• Blog
• Contact
• Search
• Donate

Contact us online or write us: Instagram Twitter Facebook RSS

Donate